The Worst-Kept Secret by Professor Avner Cohen Earns Wide Praise

Monterey Institute Professor and CNS Senior Fellow Avner Cohen had already received very favorable reviews in the New York Times and other publications for his book The Worst-Kept Secret: Israel’s Bargain with the Bomb (Columbia University Press) when he learned in December that it had been chosen as one of the best books of the year by the writers of Newsweek and its sister publication The Daily Beast.

The Worst-Kept Secret follows Professor Cohen’s widely-praised 1999 book Israel and the Bomb, delving further into Israel’s status as the “only nuclear-armed state that refuses to acknowledge its possession of the bomb” and exploring the implications of that approach for both governmental policy and societal behavior in the Middle East’s only liberal democracy.

Daily Beast contributor, former CIA officer, and senior Brookings Institution fellow Bruce Riedel placed The Worst-Kept Secret at the top of his list of notable books for the year 2011, calling it a “must-read.” At President Obama’s request, Riedel chaired the 2009 strategic review of policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan. Riedel says Professor Cohen’s book “reveals the truth about Israel’s nuclear deterrent and the balance of power in the Middle East” and calls it “a useful antidote to the Iran hysteria of war-mongering politicians.”